Long-time business manager will retire

Wolf came to the district as a business manager and basketball coach.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- The longtime business manager for the Sharon City School District is retiring.
The school board voted Monday to accept the resignation of James Wolf, effective July 31.
Wolf, who turns 55 in June, has served as business manager for Sharon for 22 years.
He may be retiring but he won't quit working.
Wolf said he is interested in either working with an investment company or in the health care field, an area in which he specialized while handling the school district's finances.
Wolf saw the Sharon schools through self-insurance programs for basic health care, workers' compensation and dental and vision insurance.
Years of savings
The district saved $450,000 in the first three years of its basic health care self-insurance effort and the workers' compensation self-insurance has saved Sharon $600,000 over the last 17 years, he said.
That means money that would have been spent on premiums for private insurance carriers was spent in the classroom instead, Wolf said.
Wolf came to Sharon as combination business manager and boys varsity basketball coach.
He held the latter position for three years, taking his team to sixth in the state.
He later coached girls volleyball for three years.
Wolf was a basketball and tennis coach and a business teacher in the Marple Newtown School District outside Philadelphia before coming to Sharon.
He was picked from a list of 100 applicants seeking the Sharon job.
"It's been fun. I've enjoyed it," Wolf said, adding that he will miss the human-resources part of his work.
Fitness equipment
In other business, the school board approved an agreement to buy $221,940 in physical fitness equipment from the National School Fitness Foundation.
The equipment is part of a wide ranging fitness program for pupils in grades seven through 12.
Sharon is borrowing the money to buy the equipment through Huntington Bank Equipment Finance of Cleveland, and though the district is responsible for the debt, the National School Fitness Foundation will actually pick up the tab by reimbursing Sharon for the monthly payments to Huntington Bank.
In return, Sharon must make the equipment part of the regular physical fitness curriculum and report individual pupil fitness results to the foundation which uses that information to attract financing to reimburse other schools for equipment they purchase through its program.
Both the Greenville Area and Farrell Area school districts in Mercer County are already participating in that program.
Sharon's equipment should be in place for the start of school in the fall.